Moby Dick: or, the White Whale eBook

Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew
out handfuls of something that looked like ripe Windsor
soap, or rich mottled old cheese; very unctuous and
savory withal. You might easily dent it with
your thumb; it is of a hue between yellow and ash
color. And this, good friends, is ambergris,
worth a gold guinea an ounce to any druggist.
Some six handfuls were obtained; but more was unavoidably
lost in the sea, and still more, perhaps, might have
been secured were it not for impatient Ahab’s
loud command to Stubb to desist, and come on board,
else the ship would bid them good-bye.

CHAPTER 92

Ambergris

Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and
so important as an article of commerce, that in 1791
a certain Nantucket-born Captain Coffin was examined
at the bar of the English House of Commons on that
subject. For at that time, and indeed until a
comparatively late day, the precise origin of ambergris
remained, like amber itself, a problem to the learned.
Though the word ambergris is but the French compound
for grey amber, yet the two substances are quite distinct.
For amber, though at times found on the sea-coast,
is also dug up in some far inland soils, whereas ambergris
is never found except upon the sea. Besides,
amber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odorless substance,
used for mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments;
but ambergris is soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant
and spicy, that it is largely used in perfumery, in
pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and pomatum.
The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca,
for the same purpose that frankincense is carried
to St. Peter’s in Rome. Some wine merchants
drop a few grains into claret, to flavor it.

Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen
should regale themselves with an essence found in
the inglorious bowels of a sick whale! Yet so
it is. By some, ambergris is supposed to be
the cause, and by others the effect, of the dyspepsia
in the whale. How to cure such a dyspepsia it
were hard to say, unless by administering three or
four boat loads of Brandreth’s pills, and then
running out of harm’s way, as laborers do in
blasting rocks.

I have forgotten to say that there were found in this
ambergris, certain hard, round, bony plates, which
at first Stubb thought might be sailors’ trousers
buttons; but it afterwards turned out that they were
nothing, more than pieces of small squid bones embalmed
in that manner.

Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris
should be found in the heart of such decay; is this
nothing? Bethink thee of that saying of St. Paul
in Corinthians, about corruption and incorruption;
how that we are sown in dishonor, but raised in glory.
And likewise call to mind that saying of Paracelsus
about what it is that maketh the best musk. Also
forget not the strange fact that of all things of ill-savor,
Cologne-water, in its rudimental manufacturing stages,
is the worst.